By Saturday at noon, at least 17 inches of snow surrounded North Carolina's team bus at its hotel near College Park, Md. But after going through a morning walk-through in a hotel meeting room, the Tar Heels dug out, made the slippery six-mile journey to the Comcast Center and practiced - because today's 2 p.m. game against Maryland will go on.
"I think it will be played ... the snow is supposed to stop tonight," Karl Hicks, the ACC's associate commissioner of basketball operations, said Saturday afternoon.
"We will continue to monitor the conditions. ... But as of right now, we're set to go."
More than two feet of snow blanketed the Washington, D.C., area Friday night through Saturday, closing airports, icing roads and freezing the area to a standstill. But Hicks said that as long as the teams, officials and the people who administer the games - meaning the table crews and game operations folks - are in place, ACC policy is to play.
The Tar Heels left campus at about 1:30 p.m. Friday afternoon, flew to Maryland and worked out Friday evening in the Terrapins' practice gym because a women's game was being played on the main floor. Maryland also returned safely from its game at Florida State on Friday, and coach Gary Williams hasn't left the arena since.
As for officials, Hicks said one lives in nearby Silver Spring, Md., and the other two were working games at Virginia and Virginia Tech on Saturday afternoon, "and we've got backup officials in the area if we need to call them," he said.
Hicks added that fan safety is a concern, and he liked Virginia's approach when it hosted Wake Forest in similarly snowy conditions Saturday. "[Athletics director] Craig Littlepage and the administration urged fans not to come to the game if it meant getting into a vehicle or a car," Hicks said. "... What they did encourage is they encouraged students to come. And any student could get in with an ID, and the students could fill in a lot of those spots."
The Terrapins, who have won two straight over UNC at the Comcast Center, may try something similar today. During a teleconference Saturday, Williams told reporters that he thinks the crowd will be "great."
"This game will be a typical Maryland-North Carolina game," he said, according to The Washington Post. "... I think everybody will be involved. Carolina played a great game against [Virginia] Tech. The last 30 minutes of that game they were the best team on the floor."
The Maryland coach also said he didn't think the weather will make a difference in how either team plays.
"There's no disadvantage or advantage here," he said. "Carolina got in yesterday [Friday] in time to practice here, and so they've been here. It's not a normal routine, but it's not normal for either team, so you have to deal with it."
The matchup is particularly key for the Tar Heels, whose loss to the Hokies on Thursday dropped them to 2-5 in the ACC standings - a huge hole, if they want to return to the NCAA Tournament.
The team had feared it would not be able to practice Saturday, but just after 4 p.m., the bus made it out of the hotel parking lot.
"We got here in about 23 minutes," team spokesman Steve Kirschner said. "And we went real, real slow."
